D'Souza Annalise A, Moradzadeh Linda, Wiseheart Melody
1Department of Psychology, York University, 4700 Keele Street, Toronto, ON M3J 1P3 Canada.
2LaMarsh Centre for Child and Youth Research, York University, Toronto, ON Canada.
Cogn Res Princ Implic. 2018;3(1):11. doi: 10.1186/s41235-018-0095-6. Epub 2018 Apr 11.
The current study investigated whether long-term experience in music or a second language is associated with enhanced cognitive functioning. Early studies suggested the possibility of a cognitive advantage from musical training and bilingualism but have failed to be replicated by recent findings. Further, each form of expertise has been independently investigated leaving it unclear whether any benefits are specifically caused by each skill or are a result of skill learning in general. To assess whether cognitive benefits from training exist, and how unique they are to each training domain, the current study compared musicians and bilinguals to each other, plus to individuals who had expertise in both skills, or neither. Young adults ( = 153) were categorized into one of four groups: monolingual musician; bilingual musician; bilingual non-musician; and monolingual non-musician. Multiple tasks per cognitive ability were used to examine the coherency of any training effects. Results revealed that musically trained individuals, but not bilinguals, had enhanced working memory. Neither skill had enhanced inhibitory control. The findings confirm previous associations between musicians and improved cognition and extend existing evidence to show that benefits are narrower than expected but can be uniquely attributed to music compared to another specialized auditory skill domain. The null bilingual effect despite a music effect in the same group of individuals challenges the proposition that young adults are at a performance ceiling and adds to increasing evidence on the lack of a bilingual advantage on cognition.
当前的研究调查了长期的音乐经验或第二语言经验是否与认知功能的增强有关。早期研究表明，音乐训练和双语能力可能带来认知优势，但最近的研究结果未能证实这一点。此外，每种专业技能形式都是独立研究的，因此尚不清楚任何益处是由每种技能具体导致的，还是一般技能学习的结果。为了评估训练是否能带来认知益处，以及这些益处对于每个训练领域来说有多独特，本研究将音乐家和双语者相互比较，并与同时具备这两种技能或两种技能都不具备的个体进行比较。153名年轻人被分为四组之一：单语音乐家；双语音乐家；双语非音乐家；单语非音乐家。使用针对每种认知能力的多项任务来检验任何训练效果的连贯性。结果显示，接受过音乐训练的个体，而非双语者，工作记忆得到了增强。两种技能都没有增强抑制控制能力。这些发现证实了之前音乐家与认知改善之间的关联，并扩展了现有证据，表明益处比预期的要窄，但与另一个专门的听觉技能领域相比，益处可以独特地归因于音乐。在同一组个体中，尽管存在音乐效应，但双语效应为零，这对年轻人处于表现上限的观点提出了挑战，并进一步证明了双语在认知方面缺乏优势。
